Flower and Leaf Pounding

Today I am testing flower pounding. I check the craft out online on Pinterest, and find Life Labs Art in the Garden pdf and their how-to YouTube (see Resources).  How does flower pounding work in practice?

Flower pounding to make bookmarks

Time of year: fall, spring, summer

Age range: 3 years - adult

Time to prep: 20 minutes

Time for activity: 20 - 40 minutes

Materials

Fresh flowers and leaves

Recommended flowers: Rose Campion, Coreopsis, Marigold, Lavender, Impatiens, Lobelia, Violets, and leaves from Parsley, Ferns, Japanese Maple

Hammers and mallets -  a selection

Wide painter’s masking tape (1 ½ inch)

Watercolor paper (140 lb), or experiment with other porous heavyweight papers

For bookmarks, in addition:

Plastic bookmark sleeves (2 ½ inch x 7 inch)

Raffia or ribbon ties

Try a selection of hammers and mallets

Preparation

1. Get together the materials: paper, painters tape, hammers and the mallets
2. Prepare for the class by pre-trimming the paper into trim paper into either:
   - bookmark sizes (say 2 ¼ inch x 7 inch) to fit in plastic sleeves
   - or notecard size (say 3 x 8 inch) to fit in envelopes
   Note: Each student will probably make two or three samples.

With class

1. Go out to the garden and harvest a handful of a variety of fresh flowers and leaves each. Note that some flowers and leaves will leave more pigment on the paper.

   

   Flowers and leaves from the garden in July

2. Cut stems and calyx off the flowers. For large flowers, such as coneflowers, discard centers, and use only the petals.

3. Work on the ground outdoors, or indoors on the floor or on a cutting board stabilized with a dishtowel or use a phonebook underneath as work surface.
4. Cut pieces of painter’s tape about 7 inches long for your bookmarks (or length to fit notecards).
5. Place the flowers and leaves face down on painters tape strip. Or put leaves and flowers onto the paper? Which works best?
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Then place the painter’s tape down onto the watercolor paper
7. Now pound on top of the tape with a hammer. Make sure to hit each section of tape many times.
8. If you need to dampen the sound, you can place a phonebook under the paper.
9. Peel back the tape, and look at the paper to see if any area needs more pounding.
10. Peel off all the tape. Colors from the leaves and flowers will have left a print on the paper.
11. Remove any flower debris that is still stuck to the paper.
12. Allow your paper to dry. Use as a notecard, or for a bookmark, or as a decoration.
13. Laminate your bookmark or put in a plastic bookmark sleeve - and finish with a ribbon or raffia tie

Extensions

Fabric: Try flower pounding using a firm woven pale cotton fabric such as muslin instead of paper. Place the fabric over the flowers and leaves, and pound directly. Watch the color of the flowers and leaves come through the cloth.  

Mordant: Soak the cloth (or experiment with paper) in a salt or soda mordant solution overnight and then dry, before using. The salt/soda solution acts as a mordant for the pigment. Recipe for a yard of fabric is 4 T Alum, 3 T Cream of Tartar, 24 cups of very hot water, mixed together in non-reactive stainless steel or enamel bowl. Put in fabric, stir and leave for 30-40 minutes until cool. Dry in cool dryer or hang out, and iron flat before using.

In my practice

• Parsley and Fern leaves left recognizable green images
• Purple Japanese Maple leaves left faint reddish patterns
• Magenta Rose Campion and purple Petunia flowers imprinted as purple
• Lavender and pink Purple Coneflowers made brown smudges

Resources

Mallets: $3.99 from Ace Hardware

Bookmark sleeves from http://www.clearbags.com/2-1-2-x-7-1-8-6-mil-poly-hanging-bookmark-sleeve.html

Other examples online

Life Labs - The Fine Art of Flower Pounding - pdf from Art in the Garden page 189.

http://www.lifelab.org/wp-content/uploads/Flower_Pounding.pdf

And YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4F4OOlSeuA&feature=youtu.be

Flower Pounding Note Cards

http://www.greencirclegrowers.com/project-ideas-1/flower-pounding-note-cards

How to: Hammered flower and leaf prints

http://buildmakecraftbake.com/2009/04/how-to-hammered-flower-and-leaf-prints.html

Laura C Martin, The Art and Craft of Flower Pounding

What Makes Trees So Colorful in the Fall?

By Kay Antunez de Mayolo 

Did you know that there are both visible and invisible changes happening in each leaf as they change colors in the fall?

Having retired recently as California PLT State Coordinator, I am finding many fun opportunities to help kids discover answers to questions like this using PLT.  In my role as “Science Nanny” for the afterschool program at Surprise Valley Elementary School in Modoc County, California, PLT is helping me incorporate environmental education and experiential learning to increase student interest, confidence, and knowledge in science.

We used Activity 78, Signs of Fall, from PLT’s PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide to teach students about fall colors and the signs of fall they observe each year. In this activity, students discovered visible and invisible changes in autumn leaves, observed the annual change of seasons, and investigated why leaves of deciduous trees change color. Together my students and I had a lot of fun learning what makes trees so colorful.

VISIBLE CHANGES

All around us, tree leaves are changing. Vibrant shades of reds, yellows, and oranges are great visual indicators that fall is here.

I shared these changes with the afterschool kids, and they discussed seasonal changes they have seen. Due to time and daylight limitations, I brought nature indoors, sharing leaves that I found at home. (If time allows, I’d recommend you take students outside to look for leaves and other signs of fall. Wooded areas, school yards, parks, neighborhoods, even your own backyard are all great places to search.)

I asked students to make rubbings of our fall leaf collection using crayons and paper. Students made impressions of the leaves, cut them out, and later we taped them to the town’s library window for everyone to see.

INVISIBLE CHANGES

Although a leaf may appear to be one color, it actually contains pigments of multiple colors. In the summer, chlorophyll, the green pigment, dominates, concealing others. As chlorophyll breaks down in the fall, other pigments reveal themselves or form, turning the leaves yellow, orange, or red. I led the afterschool students through a chromatography experiment to identify what colors were hiding inside the leaves.

Students first crunched up the leaves and put them in glass jars, using one jar for each leaf color. I then covered the leaves with rubbing alcohol. Next we placed strips of coffee filter paper into the colorful liquid in each jar. After a while, the paper absorbed some of the liquid and we could see streaks and bands of color on each of the paper strips.

We successfully extracted red, yellow, and green pigments from the leaves! Because the color of each leaf is determined by a combination of the pigments inside, each paper strip had bands of colors in different sizes.

Following the activity, one of my students asked, “What would happen if we took a green leaf and painted it yellow?” We may have to try that experiment next time so he can discover the answer. What do you think would happen?

For resources click on Project Learning Tree's Blog
https://www.plt.org/blog-signs-of-fall-afterschool-activity

shared from PLT's Blog 10/30/13

Cool Tools: Leaf Scoops...The Scoop on How to Pick Up Leaves

Here's the deal.
It's fall, you have a pile of leaves to shift from A to B.
What can you do?

Rake or leaf blower?
Or let the wind take care of them?
Use your hands?
Or you can make your own scoops with two flat boards  of 1/4 inch x 12 x 18 inch plywood.
It's your choice....

Here's another option - a great off-the-shelf tool to help you pick up your leaf pile:
Leaf Scoops by Gardex

The Leaf Scoops are fun-to-use "hand extenders".

• Why do you think the scoops are bright yellow?  And plastic?
• Do they remind you of paws, claws and jaws? 
• The scoops retail at under $6 a pair online at Walmart or slightly more at a local hardware store
  
  Bottom Line: These Leaf Scoops are cheap, cheerful, colorful - and work well.  

Thanks to the product designer, manufacturer and marketers who helped bring these scoops to you!

Go out and have fun picking up a leaf pile this fall!

'Nanogardens' Sprout Up On The Surface Of A Penny

by MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, NPR The Picture Show

May 21, 201312:55 PM

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  Courtesy of Wim Noorduin/Harvard University
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  Courtesy of Wim Noorduin/Harvard University
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  Courtesy of Wim Noorduin/Harvard University
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  Courtesy of Wim Noorduin/Harvard University
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  Courtesy of Wim Noorduin/Harvard University
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  Courtesy of Wim Noorduin/Harvard University
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  Courtesy of Wim Noorduin/Harvard University

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April showers bring May flowers. But in this case, the blossoms are too small for even a bumblebee to see.

Engineers at Harvard University have figured out a way to make microscopic sculptures of roses, tulips and violets, each smaller than a strand of hair.

To get a sense of just how small these flower sculptures are, grab a penny and flip it on its back. Right in the middle of the Lincoln Memorial, you'll see a faint impression of Abraham Lincoln. These roses would make a perfect corsage for the president's jacket lapel.

Growing the gardens is similar to making crystals with a Magic Rock kit.

The flowers sprout up spontaneously when a glass plate is dipped into a beaker filled with silicon and minerals (specifically, barium chloride). Then Wim Noorduin at Harvard coaxes the salts to spiral and swirl into smooth, curvaceous shapes, like vases, leaves and petals.

Enlarge image

Sense Of Scale:Microflower sculptures row in front of the Lincoln Memorial imprinted on the back of a penny.

Courtesy of Wim Noorduin

Click for link to article at NPR